"I don't know what a scoundrel is like, but I know what a respectable man is like, and it's enough to make one's flesh creep"
About this Quote
Respectability is de Maistre's horror genre. The line flips the expected moral hierarchy: we think the scoundrel is the danger, but de Maistre claims the truly chilling specimen is the "respectable man" - the one with polished manners, correct opinions, institutional backing. It's a barb aimed at the bourgeois self-image that was solidifying in post-Revolutionary Europe, where virtue started to look suspiciously like a dress code.
As a diplomat and counter-revolutionary Catholic thinker, de Maistre lived through the French Revolution's moral whiplash: yesterday's upright citizens became tomorrow's informers, jurors, and functionaries of terror. The quote's punch comes from that proximity to bureaucracy. A scoundrel is legible; he advertises his selfishness. The respectable man is harder to read because he's insulated by propriety and sanctioned by norms. His violence arrives wearing credentials.
The subtext is a warning about moral vanity: respectability can become a permission slip to judge, punish, and cleanse, all while preserving a clean conscience. "Flesh creep" is doing deliberate work here - disgust, not mere disagreement. De Maistre isn't arguing that immorality is better; he's arguing that social virtue, detached from humility or mercy, can curdle into something colder than vice.
It's also a sly confession. He knows power doesn't run on dramatic villains; it runs on men convinced they're decent. The sentence is short, conversational, almost offhand, which makes the indictment feel more credible - like an observation you wish weren't true.
As a diplomat and counter-revolutionary Catholic thinker, de Maistre lived through the French Revolution's moral whiplash: yesterday's upright citizens became tomorrow's informers, jurors, and functionaries of terror. The quote's punch comes from that proximity to bureaucracy. A scoundrel is legible; he advertises his selfishness. The respectable man is harder to read because he's insulated by propriety and sanctioned by norms. His violence arrives wearing credentials.
The subtext is a warning about moral vanity: respectability can become a permission slip to judge, punish, and cleanse, all while preserving a clean conscience. "Flesh creep" is doing deliberate work here - disgust, not mere disagreement. De Maistre isn't arguing that immorality is better; he's arguing that social virtue, detached from humility or mercy, can curdle into something colder than vice.
It's also a sly confession. He knows power doesn't run on dramatic villains; it runs on men convinced they're decent. The sentence is short, conversational, almost offhand, which makes the indictment feel more credible - like an observation you wish weren't true.
Quote Details
| Topic | Sarcastic |
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